I'm switching from Scottrade to TD Ameritrade next week. With most brokers, there's a 3 day settlement period with the funds you trade with. Using the same funds, in the same day, you can buy, then sell, then buy again, but that's all for the next 3-4 days. So it was always safest to wait 3 days after selling any stock before buying using the funds again. If you did happen to sell the stock within this 3 day period, it's considered a free ride. First time you get a warning call. 2nd time, they place restrictions on your account.

If you are trading in a cash account, and you have margin, this restriction doesn't apply. Also you can leverage up to 100% with margin.

Now comes me. I'm trading out of a traditional IRA account. You can't run margin in an IRA account because the government doesn't allow you to put up the IRA balance as collateral.

Along comes TD Ameritrade. They allow you to ignore the settlement rules in your IRA account. You can buy and sell using the same funds all day long, by using their money, as long as the value of the securities you purchase is never more than the funds in your account, and you have a minimum of 25k in the account at the beginning of the day. The only fee differences is you pay 9.99 per trade instead of 7.00. And the first 60 days comes with no trading fees.

My power went out in a storm for several hours, so I decided to make use of the battery backup unit I bought for the home theater, and run my fan off of it for a while. I ran it for about 20 minutes until I noticed it was cool enough to turn it off.

Later, when power was restored, I plugged fan back into regular wall receptacle and nothing. Fan wouldn't run. Checked wall outlet and it had power. Seems odd that running a fan on battery backup power would burn out the motor.

One other thing. I bought a new hair brush thingie-ma-bob, do-hinkie, thingie, from Walmart called SHEDMONSTER. This thing really works. It's designed to remove the loose inner layer of cat fur. I never seen so much hair come off that cat. She seems to be a lot cooler now too.

I tried the Furminator. Never liked it. Maybe the cat's hair is too long for it. She always tried to run away and always ended up with her hair balling up around her neck that had to be cut out. Never could get much hair off of her. It has a blade on it and seems to just cut away at the hair a little at a time.

With the Shedmonster, she loves it. Even lets me brush away at her tender belly that she hates it when I even touch it. Tons of hair comes off. Definitely not the same instrument. There's no cutting blades or sharp tines.